dumb

Meanings

Adjective

• Unable to speak; lacking power of speech (kept in "deaf, dumb, and blind").
• Silent; unaccompanied by words.
• Extremely stupid.
• Pointless, foolish, lacking intellectual content or value.
• Lacking brightness or clearness, as a colour.

Verb

• To silence.
• To make stupid.
• To represent as stupid.
• To reduce the intellectual demands of.

Origin

• From Middle English dumb, from Old English dumb, from Proto-West Germanic *dumb, from Proto-Germanic *dumbaz ("dull, dumb"), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ- ("to whisk, smoke, darken, obscure").
• The senses of stupid, unintellectual, and pointless, which are found regularly since the 19th century only, probably developed under the influence of German dumm and Dutch dom. Just like the English word, these originally meant "lacking the power of speech", but they developed the mentioned senses early on.
• Cognate with Scots dumb ("dumb, silent"), North Frisian dom, domme, West Frisian dom ("dumb, stupid"), Dutch dom ("dumb, stupid"), German dumm ("dumb, stupid"), Swedish dum ("stupid"), Icelandic dumbur ("dumb, mute"). See also deaf.
• From Middle English dumben, from Old English dumbian (more commonly in compound ādumbian), from Proto-Germanic *dumbijaną, *dumbōną, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ- ("to whisk, smoke, darken, obscure"). Cognate with German verdummen ("to become dumb").